Thought Zero – We have another week of Ring of Honor wrestling! There’s a good chance there will be some NJPW stars here too. Let’s get to it.

1) Starting things off are Cheeseburger and Will Ferrara already in the ring. Apparently they can’t think of anything else for Ferrara to do, so they have yet to pull the trigger on his turning on Burger completely. They are facing War Machine today, so really they are just being used as fodder. That works good enough.

2) Ian mentioned the dissention between Burger and Ferrara! At least it was mentioned. Ray Rowe appears even more badass than usual today as he blocks Ferrara and Burger’s forearms with his head. Then, just to prove his point, he picks up both men and hits a nice double belly to back suplex.

3) This match was fun. Don’t get me wrong, it was just an extended squash, but it was fun. Cheeseburger and Ferrara were able to show some moxie and Burger’s kick out of Rowe’s sit-out powerbomb even got a huge “Cheeseburger” chant which even I smiled at. The other part of the match’s fun is just seeing Rowe and Hansen destroy other people’s bodies. That they did, and with some extra mustard. Then they called out The Young Bucks, explaining that they want the ROH tag titles again.

4) The next match is an 8-man tag match with Evil, Sanada, Bushi, and Naito versus the Briscoes, Bully Ray, and Dalton Castle. Aside from Bully Ray, I’m looking forward to seeing these guys wrestle. Los Ingobernables de Japon have the Neverweight Open 6-man tag team titles and the Briscoes and Bully Ray have the ROH 6-man tag team titles. Of course, neither of those belts are on the line tonight, but it is interesting to see so many belts in the ring at once.

5) Bully Ray, in Philly gets some massive ECW pops. He then mocks Naito who had initially begged for him to get into the ring. So then Naito goes to show up Bully Ray and slickly tags in Bushi instead. Some pretty fun stuff there. Bushi gets nowhere with Bully Ray but Naito is able to fake out Ray again much to the delight of the crowd. Dalton Castle comes in but all of the members of the heel team attack and take over.

6) Evil and Sanada are so, so much better than they were in their previous trips through the United States. And even though Evil is just basically doing Kevin Sullivan’s old gimmick, he makes it work because he can work in the ring. The match ends because Bully Ray is stupid and calls for the tables before the match was over. As he and Mark Briscoe go to get the tables, Castle and Jay Briscoe are left in the ring. The boys push Castle out of the way to save him as Bushi charges. Bushi sprays mist into Jay Briscoe’s face and Naito covers for the pin. You know what? they deserved that for Bully Ray’s stupidity.

7) After the match, Bully Ray blames Castle because he’s an idiot. Should Castle have sacrificed himself? The boys were just protecting their leader. The Briscoes then go after the Boys, with Bully Ray’s poor sportsmanship obviously rubbing off on them, but they escape up the ramp and away from harm. We go to commercial break with Naito doing his eye thing in the center of the ring.

8) Main event time with Adam “Hangman” Page versus Adam Cole. It seems weird that Adam Cole is playing the babyface here. His arrogant character just doesn’t lend itself to that. Adam Cole’s moveset say babyface more, but he is obviously playing the heel. Interesting dynamic.

9) Aside from the queasiness of his hangman gimmick, Page continues to impress with new and interesting work. Today’s example, Page hit an awesome looking fallaway slam which he held onto with a bridge into a pinning attempt. Sweet.

10) Cole kicked out of a jumping piledriver which should have been the finish due to how ugly it looked. Gotta be a little more careful there. Of course, later Cole hits Page with a Destroyer on the floor. Ow. The finish was impressive as Page blocked a second Destroyer attempt into a Rite of Passage. Cole kicked out but Page hit a huge lariat and a second Rite of Passage to pick up the victory. I would have to say that was the right call as it puts over Page huge while giving Cole another great match on his way out.

Overall, a very, very, very good episode of ROH. All three matches were a lot of fun and hard-hitting. Next week, we have the ROH TV title match between Kushida and Marty Scurll, Looking forward to that one. Until then…

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